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Published Article
by Patricia Fry
It's Never Too Late to Establish a Solid Platform
Call it popularity, prominence, visibility, exposure and/or credibility. As an author, it's what you need in order to succeed.
Ideally, you will establish your platform (your following, your way of attracting readers) before you produce a book. And then you'll keep adding to it with each of your promotional efforts. But not every publishing venture falls within the realm of ideal.
If you are one of the many authors who emerged from their writing caves into the bright lights of publishing without a platform, there's still hope. Adopt some or all of the following platform-building activities NOW and before long, you will have a platform to stand on.
What is a Platform and Why Do I Need One?
Think about this: How many people would rush out to buy your book even if it was available at Borders and Barnes & Noble? Why would anyone choose your novel, cookbook, poetry book, children's story or self-help book over the competition? And believe me, competition in this industry is fierce. According to the Jenkins Group, seventy-five percent of all books produced these days fail. Proof of this is the statistics: In 2006, over seventy-six percent of all titles sold fewer than 100 copies.
In order to succeed in today's publishing climate, not only must an author/publisher produce an excellent book of interest to large segments of readers, he needs to be worthy of sales. How? Through his platform.
Your platform is your following, your way of attracting readers. It's your reach. The things that make up your platform will help your book become more widely known. It will demonstrate your expertise/talent/popularity within your topic or genre. It will help to convince consumers to chose your book over another or many others.
How Do I Go About Establishing a Platform?
No matter where you are in the publishing or book promotion process, start building your platform, now. If you are not well-known in the subject or genre of your book, take steps to become known. How?
- Build a web site. Choose a theme and an address that will bring people who might be interested in your book directly to your site. Along with this, start a blog, present workshops and circulate a newsletter related to the topic or genre of your book. And then promote, promote, promote.
- Visit web sites related to your topic/genre. Participate in the forums, leave comments at their blog sites, get acquainted with the web owner and volunteer to help out in some way: offer your book as a prize or award, suggest that they interview you for their site or newsletter and don't forget to ask them to add your book to their list of recommended titles.
- Launch or become involved in an organization related to the topic or genre of your book-a poetry association, a national medical support group, a therapy dog organization or a major horror/thriller web site, for example. Again, don't establish or get involved in something of value and then walk away. Promote the organization through every channel available. Your goal is to become widely known in your field so that when someone sees or hears about your book, there will be immediate recognition and, hopefully, an immediate sale.
- Make news and report it. Start a charity or a contest related to the theme of your book. If your novel features a child with Downs syndrome, create an annual fundraiser for the National Downs Syndrome Society, for example. For your book on therapy animals, start a pet therapy program locally and make sure you get press.
- Create and continually add to your mailing list and use it often. Gather up all of those business cards you've been collecting and combine them with your email addressbook, Rolodex, Christmas card list, class reunion roster and add everyone else you know: neighbors, people you meet at the gym, coworkers, colleagues, teachers at your children's school... Continue collecting business cards everywhere you go. Use your massive and growing mailing list to announce new books, the anniversary of your current book, awards won, great reviews, your upcoming appearances and so forth.
- Write articles on your topic or stories in your genre for appropriate magazines, ezines and web sites. Locate magazines through www.woodenhorsepub.com or www.writersmarket.com or Writer's Market (print version). How do you use articles and/or story submissions to build your platform? For nonfiction, write informative and/or entertaining articles related to the subject or theme of your book within the parameters of the magazine guidelines. Or submit excerpts from your book. Always study the Submission Guidelines for each magazine before submitting. For fiction, submit excerpts and stories to appropriate magazines, ezines and websites. How does this help build your platform? You get credit and exposure through the bio at the end of the story, excerpt or article. Read my bio at the bottom of this article to see how that works. Everyone who reads your article or story will, most likely, check out your bio; and your platform grows accordingly. Now a dozen, 500, 5,000 or even a million more people know who you are. Do you see how this works?
- Solicit book reviews-dozens of them. Contact appropriate web site hosts as well as newsletter and magazine editors and offer to send them a book for review. There are many more book review opportunities than you can imagine. Think outside the box on this one. Use Writer's Market, Literary Market Place and your Google Search tool to locate potentially dozens and dozens of review opportunities. Contact newspaper column editors to land reviews and interviews in specific areas of interest: sports, pets, family issues, relationships, travel, seniors, spirituality, foods/cooking, hobbies, home and garden, automobiles, retirement and more. And this suggestion is not limited to nonfiction books. If your novel has a strong foods element, contact the foods editor at newspapers nationwide. Maybe your book features an aging biker lady (a growing trend), contact the automotive, senior, travel or hobby editors of newspapers nationwide. For newspaper directories: www.newspapers.com and www.newspaperlinks.com.
- Take every opportunity to speak in public about your book topic. Start with local service club and organization meetings and continue to solicit engagements throughout your county, state and even when you travel to other states. If you're stymied as to an appropriate presentation and locating the right venues, contact me. I might be able to help.
Your platform is extremely important to the success of your book. Many authors write in a genre or on a topic in which they have some experience, thus they have at least the beginning of a platform. If you aren't widely known in the area of your book, you are certainly not alone. And your sales certainly do not have to suffer for it. Just start now taking the steps necessary to establishing your amazing platform.
Patricia Fry has spent the last 30 years establishing her platform in the area of writing and publishing. She is the author of 27 books, including 10 related to writing and publishing. Her latest books are The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book (revised 2nd edition) and the NEW Author's Workbook. www.matilijapress.com/rightway.html. Follow her informative publishing blog: www.matilijapress.com/publishingblog. Patricia is also the president of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network) www.spawn.org.
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